The Wicked and the Dead, page 1
LOOK FOR THESE EXCITING WESTERN SERIES
FROM BESTSELLING AUTHORS
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE AND J. A. JOHNSTONE
The Mountain Man
Luke Jensen: Bounty Hunter
Brannigan’s Land
The Jensen Brand
Smoke Jensen: The Early Years
Preacher and MacCallister
Fort Misery
The Fighting O’Neils
Perley Gates
Guns of the Vigilantes
Shotgun Johnny
The Chuckwagon Trail
The Jackals
The Slash and Pecos Westerns
The Texas Moonshiners
Stoneface Finnegan Westerns
Ben Savage: Saloon Ranger
The Buck Trammel Westerns
The Death and Texas Westerns
The Hunter Buchanon Westerns
Will Tanner, Deputy US Marshal
Old Cowboys Never Die
Go West, Young Man
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
THE WICKED AND THE DEAD
The Hair-Raising Tale of Hack Long and His Outlaw Gang
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE AND J.A. JOHNSTONE
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corporation
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
Teaser chapter
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Copyright © 2024 by J.A. Johnstone
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-5121-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-5121-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-5122-9 (eBook)
CHAPTER 1
The bare prison courtyard deep in Coahuila, Mexico, was hot as Hell’s foyer, and Hack Long would have given anything to be somewhere cooler. Dirt and rocks packed by decades of hooves and human feet reflected the desert sun’s rays back against the brick, rock, and adobe buildings, making the enclosure feel like a massive oven.
He sat on the ground in a sliver of shade with his back to the rough exterior wall, chewing at a tough piece of meat that could have come from a cow, bear, horse, donkey, or wolf. Dog, for all he and the others knew. He’d eaten plenty of dog in Two-Horses’ village over the past few years, when they were in the Indian Nations.
It didn’t matter. The plain, familiar stew was nourishment, and they all needed to keep up their strength for the next struggle to survive that was sure to come. Bland food was strange down in Mexico, because the smell of onions, peppers, and spices that wafted from the comandante’s office and the adjoining guards’ barracks made their stomachs rumble several times a day.
He and the boys figured the grub they brought to them was boiled up well before anything else was added, other than the salt needed for the prisoners to survive, providing another form of punishment for all those locked up in that hellhole. Only on Sundays were their tortillas and beans flavored with nopales and chilis so hot they seemed to be an added punishment instead of a treat.
Hack and the hard-eye boys with him ate every bite of whatever the Mexicans dished out and were proud to get it. They had to stay strong, because only the fit could survive in a world of bandits, murderers, and thieves.
There were two kinds of men in Purgatorio. Predators and prey. Sometimes, Hack was of the mind that only the wicked survived, while the dead were finally released from the tribulations that delivered them to dry graves outside the penitentiary with startling regularity.
The Long Gang, as they were known both inside and outside of the prison, had long ago proved capable of protecting themselves, but it was essential they continued to project a sense of menace worse than what they’d been dragged into.
That made them harder men than when they had stumbled through the gates of the Mexican prison in chains. None of them were without scars, and over half of those they shared were earned in attacks and fights that usually resulted in the deaths of the instigators.
Every day, they had only fifteen minutes to eat before going back to the copper mines, though it always seemed much shorter. On that day, Luke Fischer lowered himself to the hard ground beside the gang leader and adjusted his position to keep an eye on the other prisoners. “You feel it?”
“I do.” Jaws aching, Hack shifted the tough piece of meat to the other cheek and chewed some more.
One of the newer inmates, a man with a wispy mustache, passed the American prisoners, looking with dead eyes for a safe place to eat from those wolves who stole food. Swift attacks to take the weaker men’s twice-a-day allotment usually spilled more than they gained. The slender young man named Escobedo had only been there for a week, and in those few days, he’d lost half of his portions as well as his shoes.
Eyes glassy with hunger, work, and fear, he sat only a dozen feet from the Norte Americanos and wolfed down his meal. Two fresh cuts from an altercation the night before marred the smooth skin over one eyebrow and on the opposite cheekbone.
Andelacio Morales rose from where he squatted with a clot of other prisoners near the long row of cells and swaggered across the bare yard. Hack couldn’t stand that man because he stunk so bad. That’s part of why he and the boys steered clear of him whenever possible.
He was also the worst, most blackhearted human being Hack had ever seen. Morales’s worn-out shoes crunched on the hard-packed gravel. Even the hot air stilled as the man towered over Escobedo, who kept his eyes lowered to the tin plate between his knees. Escobedo seemed to collapse inward as his spirit vanished. Hack sensed that he wished to sink into the ground.
Morales towered over Escobedo and spoke to him in Mexican. “Your portion.”
The younger man quickly tilted the bowl to his mouth and swallowed without chewing. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and Hack wondered how he got any of that gristle down without chewing.
Morales’s face twisted. “The rest of that’s mine.”
Like a child, Escobedo twisted sideways to protect the bowl until he could get the last mouthful.
For the past several months, the Long Gang had stayed out of the trouble that swirled around them like a chiindii, the Navajo word for a dust devil. That’s what those little fights in the yard reminded him of, the skinny twisters of sand that walked across the desert floor. Those kinds of fights were as common in Purgatorio as breathing.
Knowing what was coming next, Hack put down his empty bowl and rose, using only the muscles in his stout legs. The corners of his eyes tightened, and he wondered why he was getting involved in someone else’s business.
It didn’t matter. That familiar tingle in his head rose with a hum. There are some things in this world the wanted outlaw wouldn’
He shifted over to make Morales see a fresh target rather than his young victim. “Go away and leave him alone.”
The hulk of a man didn’t take his eyes off Escobedo and the tiny bit of food left in the wooden bowl. “I’m not talking to you, gringo.”
Across the yard, Juan Perez perked up. From the corner of his eye, Hack saw the head guard grin at the incident boiling to life in the hot sun. That evil man liked nothing better than watching a good beating, and he didn’t give a whit about who was on the wrong end.
When Hack was a young man, his old daddy had always said to get the first lick in on a fight and to use anything that came to hand. The only things Hack had nearby now were his fists, and Morales was hard as the packed ground under their worn-out old boots.
“But I’m talking to you, estupido.” Hack’s right fist shot out in a blur and landed squarely against Morales’s jaw, spinning him to the side. A hard left landed on the point of his nose, which exploded in a gout of blood that gushed from both nostrils. The cartilage crunched under Hack’s large knuckles, and the man’s expression went dull.
Morales staggered backward before regaining his balance. Pursuing his advantage, Hack followed up with two more swings that immediately split the skin over Morales’s eyebrow and split his cheek. The stunned man blinked several times to clear his watering eyes. Half a dozen of his compadres gathered behind him like regimental troops, as if preparing for a charge, shouting and urging him on.
Still behind Hack, Luke Fischer barked a laugh and rose to square off with the others. Using his fingers to comb back a tuft of brown hair from his forehead, he set his feet in case somebody charged. “Darn, son. I think I just saw water shoot out of six holes in his head.”
The other members of the incarcerated Long Gang heard Luke chuckle. Two-Horses, Gabriel Santana, and Billy Lightning put their bowls on the ground and stood as one. The boys drifted behind Hack and scattered out. Had the members of the Long Gang been armed, that action would have had the makings of a shootout, with deadly results. They were all experienced gunmen and had done their share of killing both good and bad men.
Instead, they faced Morales’s lackeys and prepared to fight.
Morales was an experienced prison brawler, and a couple of hard licks and a little blood didn’t faze him all that much. A large man, he’d survived innumerable fights by using his weight and power. He shouted and rushed in to get his hands on Hack, where he could use his considerable prison experience gained from years of preying on weaker men.
Hack was far from weak and had no intention of letting that happen. Planting his right boot, he cocked his arm as if ready to swing. The instant Morales ducked his head to plow a shoulder into his chest, Hack settled back to use his own motion against him.
As a former town marshal, train and bank robber, and range rider who’d fought his way across most of Texas, bustin’ knuckles with someone else was nothing new to the gang leader. He’d learned long ago to let a man use his own leverage against himself and almost felt comfortable with what was about to happen.
When Morales charged, Hack swiveled and dodged, at the same time grabbing the inmate’s arm, and he used the man’s momentum to swing him headfirst into the prison wall. The convict’s skull and shoulder hit the solid rock and brick with a crack. The impact stopped the man’s charge, and his knees buckled.
Morales went down for a second, but using the wall to steady himself, he regained his feet and pushed off with both hands, addled for a second time in fifteen seconds. He shook his head to clear it and blood flew. Gritting his teeth, he growled like a furious coyote and rushed at Hack.
Those friends of his were moving in, and Hack had to finish up fast. Only men who lost their tempers wanted to continue a fight just to maim and hurt. He wanted that mad dog down for good in the eyes of those who saw him as their leader, so he wouldn’t have to look over his shoulder every day for the rest of the time they were there.
Morales shook his head a second time to clear the cobwebs, and droplets of blood flew like rain once again, splashing on those nearby. His face was a mask of blood that poured from his nose and a gaping split in his forehead wide enough to look like a second mouth. The edges separated enough to show his white skull, which was soon covered in red.
Hack reluctantly gave him one thing, the Mexican prisoner was tough as a horseshoe nail and had no intention of stopping. He came in again, and Hack swung a soft left that the inmate easily blocked, but it left him open, and an uppercut that started at Hack’s rope belt and aimed at the top of Morales’s head finished the fight. His teeth clacked from the impact that shattered his jaw, and he dropped in his tracks like a puppet with the strings cut. He hit the ground blowing bloody bubbles mixed with broken teeth.
Breathing hard, Hack faced Morales’s friends and squared off with them. “This’ll be the rest of you if y’all take one more step. This is over.” He pointed at Escobedo. “And you leave this man alone.”
Still making eye contact to maintain their machismo, Morales’s men drifted off like leaves in the wind, leaving Morales unconscious in the dust. Hack’s boys stayed planted where they were in case someone whirled to charge. When all the inmates were back to their places in the shade, they relaxed and went back to their own small pieces of ground.
Escobedo nodded his thanks and pushed his back closer to the rock and mortar wall, as if ensuring no one could get in behind him. He tipped the bowl into his mouth and finished the food Hack had fought for.
Hack licked his thumb and rubbed at the now raw knuckles on his left hand. With all the roosterin’ between them over with for the time being, he picked up his own wooden bowl and returned to his previous spot in the shade to suck in another mouthful of the now-cold stew.
The shirt hanging on his thick shoulders wasn’t much more than a thin rag, but a new rip in the back that ran from shoulder to waist parted when he sat. “It’s a good thing this storm is coming.” He picked up the conversation with Luke as if they’d never been interrupted. “They won’t make us work for a day or two while it passes through, and Escobedo there can rest up.”
Luke scratched at his brown whiskers. “I’m surprised you stood up for that feller.”
Hack chewed for a moment longer and nodded at Escobedo, who watched his tormentor’s lackeys haul the unconscious man off. “He’ll make it now, maybe. Did you hear what happened in his cell last night?”
Luke swallowed the last of his meal. “Escobedo’s tougher’n you think. He whipped Torres one-on-one.”
Two-Horses stood in the sun, picking at a callus on his thumb. His face was wide, jaw solid, with prominent, protruding cheekbones. It was his White man’s blue eyes that set him apart from his Comanche roots. Round in shape and always narrowed against the light, they spoke of mixed blood that almost no one, white or red, could abide.
He seldom spoke, but he seemed surprised Hack had waded into a fight that didn’t have anything to do with any of them. “So why’d you help him?”
“Because what they did wasn’t right. Torres paid one of the guards, and I figure it was Perez, to open Escobedo’s cell after lockup. Torres slipped in, and about five minutes later they had to carry what was left of him out. They locked the cell again, and nobody said a word. That’s why I think Escobedo can handle himself, but two fights so close together can drain a man down to nothing.
“The truth is, I don’t like it that Perez is playing games with everyone in here. Next time it could be me or you or any one of us who’s not up to snuff at the moment and can’t defend themselves.”
“Why did he let Torres into Escobedo’s cell in the first place?” Gabe Santana wanted to know. Besides Luke, Gabe had been with Hack longer than the others. A lithe, slender man with black hair, olive complexion, and somber eyes, he’d been a man to ride the river with from the first time Hack laid eyes on him up in Llano County.
“Because I heard there was a bet over who would win.”
